


In Dreams

by arabmorgan



Category: ATEEZ (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Magical Realism, Dreamsharing, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-08
Updated: 2020-06-22
Packaged: 2021-03-04 06:27:33
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 10,683
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24609154
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/arabmorgan/pseuds/arabmorgan
Summary: In which Wooyoung saves Yeosang, and then Yeosang returns the favour.
Relationships: Jung Wooyoung/Kang Yeosang
Comments: 27
Kudos: 111





	1. i hear your name

**Author's Note:**

> Aaand it's me, back with more woosang, because there can never be enough!

Dreams, whether fantastical or mundane, weren’t usually dangerous. Nightmares, on the other hand, could be deadly – people died from them every night. Not many, and mostly children, who were the least likely to be able to realise that they were dreaming and wake themselves up, but enough.

Wooyoung considered himself something of a nightmare connoisseur.

Five minutes in a dreamscape and he was usually able to tell whether death dogged the dreamer’s footsteps that night. Dreams were organic after all – some deep, dark part of the brain knew exactly what was coming, even if the forebrain didn’t.

Some dreamers were regularly plagued by nightmares, but death never loomed near them. Their dreamscapes were vivid with the sour taste of fear, every edge outlined adrenaline-sharp despite the creeping shadows. All around beat the rapid rhythm of a frantic heart as it searched for safety. These dreamers slept in terror and awoke sweat-drenched and trembling, but the important thing was that they awoke.

Wooyoung had long ago stopped interfering in those dreamscapes.

The ones that caught his attention weren’t always dark, but there was a heaviness to these dreamscapes, a sluggish sense of unease that crept up his spine the longer he looked around. The echo of a rabbit-quick heartbeat pulsed in his ears, pounding not just with fear but with overwhelming dread, in the way even an apex predator shied away from impending death. The subconscious always knew.

That was when the search began.

Dreamscapes were never very large, but sometimes it could be notoriously difficult to locate the dreamer, especially if the dream was populated with other people, wraiths of friends and family strolling about doing whatever the dreamer assumed they did on a daily basis. Wooyoung had learned to be methodical about it, to ignore whatever oddities he saw and follow the strengthening pulse of the heart in his ears to the core of the dream.

Even alive, he had never been one for subtlety. His usual modus operandi involved running up to the dreamer and yelling something along the lines of “You’re dreaming. You have to wake up!” at them. Sometimes they did and sometimes they didn’t. Sometimes they were in the midst of running or fighting for their lives, and had no time to spare for Wooyoung. Sometimes it was up to him to push them out of the way of a rogue train, or a bullet, or just a falling potted plant.

Other times, he was too late. He reached in time to see the dreamer get stabbed in the chest, or disappear into a pool of quicksand, or get trampled by a raging bull. Or the dreamscape dissolved around him even before he could find the dream’s epicentre, death claiming the dreamer before he could. The heart gave a last, stuttering beat, and then stopped for good.

After all, anyone who died in their dreams died for real.

Wooyoung could testify to that – accidentally falling off the side of a building, even in a dream, hadn’t been any fun at all. He was almost grateful that there was no one around he had to explain himself to. Who died by _accident_ in a regular dream? That was just plain embarrassing, but dead was dead, and he was pretty sure that he was very much so.

He figured that maybe he was in some sort of weird afterlife now, a guardian angel for those who suffered from night terrors, saving them from following in his unfortunate footsteps. There weren’t as many rescues required as he would have expected – not many people dreamed about dying at all, much less nightly.

Mostly he skimmed the edges of nice dreams, a tourist in a different dreamscape each night. Some were topsy-turvy and haphazardly coloured, a child’s gleeful perception of the world. Others were well-ordered and methodical, a near-perfect replica of the world beyond. All of them were peaceful, the steady drumbeat of the heart a constant, soothing reverberation in the background.

That night, however, Wooyoung could feel that he was needed.

He sensed it the moment he set foot in the dreamscape, the ground shuddering beneath his feet, the last futile attempt of a prey animal to escape the inevitable extinguishing of its life. He cocked his head for just a moment, every muscle tense and alert as he listened for the dreamer’s heartbeat. It pounded in the distance, calling to him, and he ran, not because his life depended on it but because someone else’s did.

Whoever was dreaming was afraid of fire. Wooyoung found him huddled in a corner, shaking silently, head ducked beneath the smoke as the flames licked ever nearer. Wooyoung skidded right into him with a muffled _oof_ , before scrambling to his knees and grabbing the dreamer by the shoulders.

“You’re dreaming!” he shouted over the roar of the inferno, sweat dripping off the tip off his nose and steaming where it hit the floor. “Wake up!” He shook the dreamer by the shoulders almost violently, until the other snapped his head up to stare at Wooyoung, wide-eyed and terrified, tears streaking down his soot-blackened face. He looked painfully young.

“Wake up,” Wooyoung repeated insistently, grip loosening now that he had the other boy’s attention. “This isn’t real. Just wake up and you won’t die.”

The dreamer seemed beyond reason. “Help me,” he whispered, but Wooyoung could hardly hear him over the crackling that filled his ears. Wooyoung saw the boy’s eyes dart past him to the fire, roaring and growing, inching forward threateningly in the way no fire would do in the real world. His chest was rising and falling so quickly that he looked as if he might pass out at any moment.

Wooyoung grabbed the boy by the face, his palms pressing roughly into the other’s cheeks. “Look at me,” he said fiercely, leaning close. “ _Look_ at me. What’s your name?”

The boy blinked at him, almost cross-eyed with the effort. Wooyoung could feel him quivering beneath his hands, and for what felt like an eternity he thought that he wouldn’t receive an answer.

Finally, shakily, but sounding more lucid than before, the boy gasped out, “Yeosang. I’m Yeosang.” One hand came up to grab at Wooyoung’s wrist, his grip crushingly tight, but the additional contact seemed to ground him even further. His eyes cleared of his blind panic, even though he still shook like a leaf, his breath coming in harsh pants.

He wasn’t as young as he had first seemed, Wooyoung realised suddenly. He was probably around Wooyoung’s age, no longer really a boy but not yet a man either, that strange in between era of growing up.

“Okay, good.” Wooyoung forced a smile despite the heat curling at his back, almost unbearable now. “Yeosang, listen. This is a dream. You’re fine. Either you wake up or you control this dreamscape. This is your mind. You’re in control here.”

Yeosang shook his head, his face pale beneath the powdery soot caked on every exposed inch of skin. “I can’t,” he whispered. “I don’t know how.”

Wooyoung hesitated, considering his options. “Okay,” he said at last, and shot Yeosang a rather sheepish look. “Let’s hope this works then.”

Yeosang only had time to furrow his brows in confusion before Wooyoung drew his hand back and slapped him full across the face. His eyes popped wide, his mouth half-opening in shock, and then abruptly, he was gone, awake and alive.

The burning heat vanished from Wooyoung’s back, replaced by a cool breeze that ruffled playfully at his hair. Sighing in relief, Wooyoung turned around to the familiar sight of his own dreamscape, bright and colourful. He wasn’t exactly dreaming, but he didn’t quite know what else to call it, this little sanctuary of his. Maybe death was just an eternal dream. It wasn’t bad, but it did get a little lonely at times.

The next night, he found Yeosang trapped by the flames once more. He was slumped in the corner this time, not seated and trembling like before, and the sight filled Wooyoung with dread. The dreamscape was still vivid – he could taste the choking haze that stole into his lungs, feel the flames that seared both his skin and his vision – so the dreamer definitely wasn’t dead, but it might be a close thing.

“Hey!” he shouted, falling heavily to his knees by Yeosang’s limp body. “Yeosang!” He shook the other boy roughly, turning him over so that he was facing upwards, face angled limply towards Wooyoung. He was blinking blearily, struggling to respond to Wooyoung’s call. Wooyoung slipped his hand into Yeosang’s and felt the other’s fingers curl weakly against his palm.

Yeosang’s lips moved faintly, and Wooyoung had to bend to hear the hoarse whisper that rasped from the other’s throat. “Don’t slap me again,” he muttered, and Wooyoung could almost have slapped him for that smart remark alone. How could anyone make jokes in this situation? Wooyoung wasn’t the one who’d wink out of existence if the flames ate them up.

“Think of water,” he said urgently. “Think of rain, or a pipe bursting. Put out the damn fire, Yeosang. Come on, or I swear I’ll slap you even harder than before.”

Yeosang stared up at him, bottom lip caught between his teeth. His hair was blonde despite the ash, Wooyoung realised quite suddenly. He brushed at the strands hanging messily in Yeosang’s face, the air before him simmering mirage-like before his eyes from the heat, and had to valiantly resist the urge to shout, “Get a move on!”

He also noticed that Yeosang hadn’t gotten his roots done in a while.

It was always like this in emergencies. The damnedest things would stick in Wooyoung’s mind – the dreamer who wore only one sock as they ran; the photo frames that contained the same picture, over and over, lined up on the wall; the tea kettle that smelled like alcohol when it whistled instead of tea. The little things that stuck in his memory, like the black roots growing from Yeosang’s scalp.

The next thing he knew, a spray of saltwater hit him square in the face and left him spluttering.

“Seriously? It just _had_ to be the ocean, didn’t it,” Wooyoung complained, squinting around at their changed surroundings. They were still in what he assumed to be Yeosang’s apartment, but it was now covered in a foot of chilly seawater, soaking into his pants and shoes. The wall beside them had vanished all together, the ocean lapping gently into the apartment with every wave.

Yeosang sat up slowly, one hand pressing into Wooyoung’s thigh as he fought to steady himself. “I can’t believe that worked,” he said absently to himself as he blinked out at the restless ocean, ebbing and flowing right outside his home. Turning, his eyes locked onto Wooyoung’s face, dark and sharp with intelligence now instead of blind terror.

“And who are you?” he asked at last, one brow raising sardonically.

Wooyoung scoffed. “Is that any way to treat your saviour?” he demanded indignantly, but he quickly caved beneath Yeosang’s unimpressed expression. “You’re no fun. I’m Wooyoung.” He huffed sulkily, sticking his hands into the water and pushing himself to his feet, nose wrinkling at the smell of the sea in his nose. He was, when it came down to it, very much a city boy through and through.

Yeosang, still seated on the ground, looked up at him with a faint curl of amusement lifting the corner of his mouth. “Well, thank you for saving me, Wooyoung,” he said, and there was a sweet sort of sincerity in his eyes despite the teasing in his tone.

Wooyoung found himself smiling in spite of himself. “So,” he started conversationally, watching curiously as Yeosang began to wipe at his blackened face with his equally-charred sleeve. “What’s with the nightmares anyway? I’m assuming you haven’t almost died in your sleep before, because you’ve been _terrible_ at reacting to it. Like _Things Not to Do When You Find Yourself in a Nightmare 101_ bad.”

Yeosang glared at Wooyoung. “Now look,” he said heatedly, before pausing and probably realising that he had indeed been quite pathetic from an outsider’s perspective. He sighed, the roll of his eyes seeming more tired than truly annoyed.

“I’m asleep in the hospital right now,” he admitted. “There was a fire in my dorm building and it got pretty out of control. I got burnt – not badly – but just a little, before the firefighters got to me. It was…bad. Really bad. I thought I was going to die there. It felt like I was on fire – maybe I was. I don’t know. I’m basically fine now. They’re just keeping me for smoke inhalation, but…I mean, I guess I don’t have to tell you that I still dream about it.” His face crumpled for a moment, a shiver running through him at the memory.

For a moment, Wooyoung felt the air around them simmer with the heat of phantom flames, before Yeosang blinked and came back to himself, his wry smile firmly back in place.

“Well, at least you know what to do now,” Wooyoung said brightly. “You didn’t survive a whole damn fire just to die in a dream. That would seriously be dumb. I’m sure you’re better than that.”

He stuck a hand out somewhat forcefully, snorting when Yeosang recoiled momentarily in surprise, but finally he took Wooyoung’s hand and scrambled to his feet with a splash. When he shook his head, pale flakes of ash floated down into the water, dotting the dark surface with white before they sank out of view.

“What are you doing in my dream anyway?” Yeosang asked after a moment, his head tilting as he studied Wooyoung with interest. Yeosang’s stare, Wooyoung was starting to realise, was rather frightening. It felt as if he was looking right into Wooyoung’s soul, scrutinising every little fragment of being he was made of and perhaps finding him lacking.

Wooyoung shrugged, suddenly uncomfortable. Yeosang was not the first dreamer to ask him such a question, but none of the others had ever taken the truth very well. He was a living – well, not _living_ , but clearly visible – representation of everyone’s darkest fears, of going to sleep and never waking up again, of a million things left unsaid and undone, of loved ones cruelly left behind.

“Um, I died in a dream,” he said shortly, looking down at the quietly rippling water as he scuffed his waterlogged shoes against the floor. “So I got stuck here and there’s not very much to do, honestly. I just, uh, try to save other people from the same fate.”

The silence stretched on for so long that for a moment Wooyoung wondered if Yeosang had woken up, but when he looked up Yeosang was still standing before him, eyes wide and mouth comically agape.

“Sorry,” Yeosang sputtered the moment Wooyoung glanced up at him. “I mean, you’re dead? Like _dead_ dead? That’s really weird. Is there anyone else like you around?” He looked quite adorably flustered, which made an interesting change from his self-assured schtick of a minute before.

“I mean, I died and woke back up in my own dreamscape, so – yeah, pretty sure I’m _dead_ dead.” Wooyoung smirked uncomfortably and shrugged. “And I haven’t seen anyone besides dreamers like you. I don’t know what happens to everyone else who dies.”

Yeosang nodded slowly, looking a bit like he was deciding whether or not to back away slowly from Wooyoung before running for his life. “Well, thank you,” he said again after a moment, with a stubborn set to his jaw. “You didn’t have to save me, but you did.” He shifted just a step closer, a tentative smile playing about his lips, but it was enough for Wooyoung to smile back, relieved.

“I didn’t use to dream very often before the fire, but you can come back and visit me if you can find my dreamscape again,” Yeosang offered. “I think –” He broke off suddenly, looking startled, before his eyes glazed over and he began to fade from view, shade by shade. He was waking, struggling back into consciousness from the depths of slumber, his dreamscape dissolving around them until Wooyoung was once again back in the construct of his own mind.

Wooyoung rarely intentionally returned to the same dreamscapes to make social visits, and not simply because most dreamers who found out he was dead began to shy away from him, instinctively revolted by his very existence. It was also because his tether seemed somehow physically bound. He didn’t know if it was because he was buried near a hospital or something equally creepy, but many of the dreamers he encountered were, like Yeosang, patients of a hospital somewhere in Seoul.

Nevertheless, he made the effort to locate Yeosang once more that night, flitting from dreamscape to dreamscape until he felt the other boy’s familiar presence infusing the entire location. There was still a tremor of unease running through the dreamscape, but a tamer fear than before, and one that didn’t promise imminent death.

He found Yeosang in his apartment again, the walls blackened and crumbling, but the air was fresh with the pleasant scent of newly-cut grass. One section of the ceiling had completely disappeared, and a pool of warm spring sunshine flooded in through the gap, illuminating the dining table that Yeosang sat at. He was staring blankly down at the smooth wooden surface with his fists clenched before him, and Wooyoung hesitated for a moment in the doorway.

Forcing himself into motion, he bounded up to Yeosang, catching him quite suddenly by the shoulders, and his smile brightened into a full-fledged laugh when Yeosang jumped at his sudden intrusion.

“Wooyoung –” Yeosang’s hand flew to his chest, his eyes closing momentarily in shock before he met Wooyoung’s eyes and smiled, small and pensive. “I stopped the fire on my own today.”

Wooyoung grinned. “You did!” he agreed, pulling out a chair and plopping down opposite Yeosang. “Good job. Just always remember that in your dreams, _you’re_ the one in control.”

He eyed Yeosang for a moment, frowning at the exhaustion that almost visibly weighed the other down. It was rare for someone to look less than perfect in his own dreamscape. Yeosang was terribly cute, of course, especially now that his face was clean and his blonde locks were tucked behind his ears to better show off his delicate features – but his mouth was turned down in a troubled scowl, his shoulders slumped beneath an invisible load.

“What’s wrong?” Wooyoung asked, reaching out to pull one of Yeosang’s hands towards him. “Do you have anywhere to stay once you’re out of the hospital? Or are they not discharging you?” He tugged at the stiff fingers until they unclenched, relaxing enough for Wooyoung to manipulate them aimlessly.

Yeosang blinked at him, and his smile was slow in coming, more like a mildly amused twitch of his lips than anything. “No, my school will provide alternate accommodation, so I’m fine on that end. I just haven’t been sleeping well. I keep feeling like I might wake up to another fire or something. I’m not usually a jumpy person, you know.” He sighed, pressing his lips together. “I’m actually getting discharged in the morning, so there’s that. Back to living alone.”

Wooyoung felt his heart sink selfishly at that news. Well, there went the only decent conversation he’d had in who knew how long.

Still, he forced a grin onto his face, shaking Yeosang’s limp hand in his. “Hey, at least you’re getting out,” he said, aiming for reassuring but probably coming off as mildly bitter instead. “The chances of another fire starting where you live are infinitesimally low, seriously. Stop worrying about that.”

Yeosang raised a brow, giving him a rather unnerving look that seemed to suggest he knew exactly what Wooyoung was thinking. “Are _you_ okay,” he said bluntly, a statement rather than a question, as if he knew with certainty that Wooyoung was very much not okay.

Wooyoung shook his head, letting go of Yeosang’s hand as he looked off to the side. “I’m fine,” he muttered, but the heaviness in his chest felt new. How long had it been since he’d died? Forty, fifty nights? Less than two months – but Wooyoung had always been an immensely social creature, and this tenuous connection he’d forged with Yeosang was more than he’d had in what felt like ages. He didn’t want to let go of it so soon, not that he had a say in the matter.

Yeosang made a small noise that sounded like a rather sceptical _hm_ , and then he stood, his chair scraping back against the floor as he came around to crouch before Wooyoung. He took both of Wooyoung’s hands in his and squeezed lightly, his eyes soft and concerned. It should probably have been strange, this odd and unprecedented intimacy between two people who knew next to nothing about each other, but there was a relaxed unreality to the whole scene.

In a dream, anything was possible.

“Seriously,” Yeosang said, smiling as he peered up at Wooyoung’s face. “Come on, tell me.”

Wooyoung’s feeble attempt at keeping up a strong front shattered quite quickly in the face of Yeosang’s coaxing, and he groaned, frustrated. “Look, I’m kind of stuck in dreams around this area,” he said impatiently, and he would have wrung his hands if Yeosang hadn’t been holding on to them. “I think I might be buried somewhere nearby. I visit dreamscapes of a lot of patients in general, so it’s like – you know how in movies the ghost is stuck in their own home or something? It’s like that for me. So once you get discharged, I won’t be able to visit you anymore unless you literally live next door to the hospital.”

A flash of confusion crossed Yeosang’s face, like something wasn’t sitting quite right with him, before his expression softened even further, from worry to outright sympathy.

“Don’t look at me like that,” Wooyoung complained, standing and pulling Yeosang up with him. “You’re making me feel emotional. Just don’t go getting yourself killed after I spent all that time saving you, okay?” He felt more capable of grinning truthfully now, bittersweet fondness mixed with trepidation.

Yeosang looked down at their joined hands for a moment, and then he lifted his gaze to meet Wooyoung’s. “Tell me about yourself,” he said suddenly, his eyes gleaming with determination, with a wild plan suddenly formed. “Your full name, where you studied, everything. I’ll find you – your…grave or whatever. I’ll come back, Wooyoung. I promise.”

Wooyoung faltered at the enormity of that thought, of a constant he could hold on to in this senseless, bizarre afterlife. “You don’t have to –” he started, awkward and hesitant.

“But I _want_ to.” Yeosang cut him off mercilessly, something hard and determined coming to life beneath his serene exterior. Around them, the apartment seemed to brighten minutely, beginning to forget the scorching horrors of the fire from before.

“Okay, okay,” Wooyoung said with a laugh, falling back onto joviality in the way he always did, tucking his fears away somewhere he didn’t have to look at them too closely. Maybe Yeosang would come back and maybe he wouldn’t. It didn’t do to hope too hard, but sometimes imagination was pleasant enough for him.

He could picture it perfectly, dream-hopping with his ears pricked as he always did, on the lookout for anyone in need of help. He could feel it too, the familiar touch of Yeosang’s dreamscape, a beacon lighting his way in the darkness. And then he could see it, delving deeper into this dreamscape, a mirror of the world he could never return to, finding Yeosang waiting for him with his hand outstretched. No fear, no fires, no nightmares.

It would be like coming home, just for a little while. Wooyoung wanted it – he wanted it so badly.

That was why he told Yeosang everything. His name, his school, where he had grown up, where he had lived. His parents, his brothers, his friends. He told Yeosang about the little shop around the corner where he had loved to eat grilled meat. The convenience store near his high school that he used to run to with his friends for ice cream after the bell rang. Things he hadn’t even realised he still remembered, suddenly swimming up from the depths of his memory.

Hardly any of this would be useful to Yeosang, he thought, but it was a relief to finally pour it all out, the words and thoughts and feelings that had been bouncing around in his brain like a trapped animal. If he vanished, there would be someone else to carry their weight, one more person in the world to remember that Jung Wooyoung had once lived.

He told his stories until Yeosang twitched, his eyes losing focus, and then he fell silent and watched as Yeosang faded out of view, only ever a temporary guest in what was now Wooyoung’s eternal reality.

Turning, Wooyoung looked upon his own dreamscape and sighed. Sometimes, he imagined that he could still hear his own heart beating somewhere in the far distance, even and comforting, but just out of reach.

To still be alive – it was a very nice thought indeed.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> In case anyone is concerned, all tags (or lack thereof) are accurate ʕ•ᴥ•ʔ


	2. we meet again

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Happy birthday to my best boy Kang Yeosang!

Yeosang opened his eyes to the blurry darkness of night and the not-quite silence of a building that never slept. Rolling over, he reached for his phone, squinting at the sudden glare of the screen when it lit up. 3:02am. Wonderful.

He almost rolled right back to sleep when something stopped his hand, halfway outstretched to return his phone to the bedside table. There was something nagging at the back of his mind, the annoying knowledge that he’d forgotten something even though he couldn’t remember _what_ it was he’d forgotten.

His gaze wandered about the hospital room, imagining the orange-red glow of flames lighting the sterile white walls.

_Wooyoung._ The name popped into his head quite suddenly, a door swinging open in his mind. _Jung Wooyoung_ – that was it. Yeosang scrambled to pull up his Notes app, typing the name into his phone as quickly as he could before it slipped his mind again. What else had Wooyoung told him? It was all frustratingly hazy now, the brute force of the real world layering itself on top of his wispy recollections.

He typed out the few sparse facts he could remember, but the smaller details were already fading no matter how hard he tried to hold on to them. Wooyoung had been a university student too, but Yeosang couldn’t remember which one. He’d grown up somewhere near Seoul, but Yeosang couldn’t remember exactly where either. All that was left were vague statements: _he told me about his brother. He told me that he liked to dance._

Yeosang closed his eyes, letting out a short, sharp breath of annoyance.

He didn’t know why he was doing this really. He didn’t know Wooyoung. He wasn’t even a particularly sentimental person. Maybe it was just morbid curiosity, or maybe Wooyoung putting his own ass on the line to save Yeosang’s life twice counted for more than he would allow himself to admit.

No longer even remotely sleepy, he pulled up Naver. _jung wooyoung_ was as useless a search term as could’ve been expected. _jung wooyoung university seoul_ was only marginally better – Yeosang scrolled through the results, willing his brain to make the right school name pop out at him. Seoul National, Yonsei…none of them sounded right. He didn’t think Wooyoung had been a SKY university student.

_jung wooyoung university seoul dance_ was where he struck gold, with a bulletin published by Hansung University. Jung Wooyoung, dance major, 21, part of the team that had brought back the silver trophy for their school in an inter-varsity dance competition. There was a picture splashed across the bottom in full colour, a single grinning face standing out immediately to Yeosang’s eyes.

Wooyoung looked like he had been caught in the middle of laughing, his eyes narrowed to slits of delight, the apples of his cheeks lifted above the white flash of his teeth. Surrounded by his teammates, he looked joyful, radiant almost, and brimming with life.

Yeosang enlarged the picture, zooming in on Wooyoung’s face with a fearful sort of solemnity. It was one thing to meet a mysterious boy in his dreams, his form only vaguely recalled, like a sepia picture dull with age. It was quite another to see proof of that same boy’s existence in his hands, evidence of an entire life cut short, with hobbies that he’d enjoyed and a family he’d loved.

Yeosang thought of Wooyoung as he had known him, that patient, smiling boy who now existed only in dreams, and who had devoted himself to saving a multitude of strangers for the rest of his afterlife. He thought about how _good_ someone’s soul had to be to make that choice, and the sudden stab of grief he felt at that startled even himself.

_I’ll find you._ He’d promised that, hadn’t he?

Yeosang took one last hard look at the boy in the picture, tracing the familiar features with his gaze until they were etched in his mind even after he closed his eyes.

_I’ll find you._ That was a promise he sure as hell was going to keep.

* * *

In the end, it was quite some time before Yeosang gathered the energy to think about Wooyoung again.

He was kept rather busy moving into his new dorm room, a slow and painful process despite his friends showing up en masse to help. He threw out a few items that had been damaged in the fire and went shopping to replace them, and ended up having to call Yunho and Mingi to save the day when he realised that there was no way he was carrying everything upstairs on his own with one arm in a cast.

There was also the matter of catching up on the classes he had missed, and the assignments he hadn’t started, and simply the multitude of items on his to-do list that had somehow multiplied exponentially after less than a week away.

It was almost a relief to sit down in his chair and type _seoul obituaries_ into the search field, a morbid but welcome break from the more pressing matters in his life. Everyone got obituaries when they died, right? Quite honestly, Yeosang didn’t really know if that was true, but he supposed it stood to reason that Wooyoung was likely to have one.

He went as far back as six months, frowning at his screen until the text began to blur before his eyes, but there was no Jung Wooyoung to be seen, not even a false alarm of any sort.

Yeosang turned to social media next, and that was where he finally found _jwy99_ , a public Instagram account full of grinning selfies and brief dance videos. Yeosang spent a little too long scrolling through the page, filled with a sickening sort of curiosity until the growing lump in his throat forced him to stop.

The most recent post was sixty-seven days old, a picture of Wooyoung with his cheeks puffed out, chopsticks poised over a bowl of spicy ramen, captioned with _this ramen made san cry lmao_. There were over a hundred comments beneath it, and Yeosang felt his stomach twist oddly as he scrolled slowly through them, confusion and disbelief beginning to buzz in his mind.

> _I miss you youngie_
> 
> _wake up soon we miss u!!!!!_
> 
> _Get well soon <3_
> 
> _training aint the same without you wooyoung, wake up_
> 
> _#WakeUpWooyoung_
> 
> _love you wy come back :(_

So Wooyoung…wasn’t dead?

Yeosang set his phone down slowly, his mind flipping sluggishly through the facts. Wooyoung had said himself that he was bound to one location. He was stuck visiting dreamers near the hospital, a fact that had bothered Yeosang slightly when he had first heard it, and now he knew why – there weren’t any graveyards or columbariums near the hospital. There was no way Wooyoung’s remains were anywhere nearby.

But now it seemed that Wooyoung wasn’t buried at all, and Yeosang didn’t know if he understood what was going on.

He dreamt of fire again that night, and jerked breathlessly awake near four in the morning, his hands shaking. He managed to get back to sleep, but Wooyoung, of course, never appeared.

He returned to the hospital two days later, fists clenched nervously as he walked up to the front desk. _You have a face that parents like_ was something Mingi had said to him before, whatever that meant, and Yeosang did his best to keep that in mind as he pasted a polite smile on his face.

“Hi,” he started, trying not to imagine getting kicked out of the hospital, or worse, arrested. “I’m here to visit Jung Wooyoung.” He flattened the final syllable at the last moment, just barely preventing his tone from lilting up into a question.

The nurse spent less than ten seconds typing and clicking around on her monitor before she glanced back at Yeosang. “Are you a school friend?” she asked, barely waiting for him to nod before she continued, “His parents haven’t put any restrictions on friends visiting, so you can go on in.” Her smile was pleasant as she rattled off the ward and room number, which Yeosang repeatedly numbly to himself.

He was actually going to see Wooyoung, a boy he knew only from poorly-remembered dreams and a couple of pictures online. The more he thought about it, the crazier it sounded.

Yeosang’s path led him to the intensive care unit, and the vague silhouette of frightening-looking machines behind the glass caught his eye as he stopped outside the right door. His heart began to thud anxiously in his chest for no good reason at all, adrenaline compressing all the noise around him into a muffled buzz in his ears, and he had to take a deep breath before entering the room.

His first thought was that Wooyoung looked _small_. He had been the same height as Yeosang in his dream – he remembered that much – but here, hooked up to multiple beeping machines and with a tube up his nose, Wooyoung looked nothing like the bright-eyed boy in the pictures that Yeosang had gotten used to seeing. He looked frail and not quite there, his dark hair cropped short, and it felt to Yeosang as if he might dissolve into nothingness at any moment.

Slowly, tentatively, Yeosang took a seat in the chair positioned right by the head of Wooyoung’s bed, a chair that he imagined was often used.

“Hey,” he said, and immediately felt foolish for speaking out loud. Carefully, he touched the side of Wooyoung’s hand with two fingers, just enough to feel the real, warm flesh against his skin. A slight shiver ran its way up his arm and he drew away, unnerved. He almost wanted to get up and leave, but the thought of the lonely frustration he had seen in Wooyoung’s expression the last time they had spoken kept him seated.

Yeosang stared at the disconcerting slackness of Wooyoung’s face, his expression just a little too empty to really be called peaceful. There was nothing much he could say. He could chatter on as much as he liked here, but Wooyoung would never know of his presence unless they met in Yeosang’s dreamscape again.

With a sigh, he leaned back in the chair. “I did say I’d find you,” he muttered, and he watched the steady rise and fall of Wooyoung’s chest until his own head nodded forward and he slipped into a restless doze, surrounded by the constant background whir of the machines that kept Wooyoung alive.

* * *

Yeosang was home, not in his dorm in Seoul but back in Pohang, where the smell of the sea breeze curled welcomingly about him. He dug his toes into the sun-warmed sand, squinting against the glare of the sun off the roiling waves as he listened to the gentle hiss of the sea meeting land.

His family was somewhere nearby – he could feel it in the way one simply _knew_ things in dreams – but his path ahead was clear. He padded to the very edge of the water and watched the cool seawater submerge his toes before retreating. The afternoon sun beat down on the back of his neck, but it was a comfortable warmth rather than the unpredictable heat of the flames that had been plaguing his sleep.

The next thing he knew, he heard an excited cry of “Yeosang!” and promptly found himself falling face first into the ocean.

“ _Jung Wooyoung_ ,” he spluttered, eyes squeezed shut as he spat the taste of salt out of his mouth. Reaching out blindly, he flicked water wildly behind him, the high-pitched squeal that assaulted his ears a split second later telling him he’d found his target.

Sighing, Yeosang blinked his stinging eyes open to see Wooyoung grinning at him, a few stray droplets of water darkening his shirt and dripping down the side of his face. The sight sobered him immediately, but before he could open his mouth to explain the situation, Wooyoung was already talking over him.

“You came back,” the other boy crowed excitedly, splashing over and hauling Yeosang to his feet. Staggering slightly before he regained his balance, he pulled them both onto dry land, the sand clumping muddily between Yeosang’s toes. Spinning around, Wooyoung looked Yeosang up and down for a moment, his brows suddenly furrowing as if in realisation.

“Wait,” he said suddenly, eyes flashing up to meet Yeosang’s. “Are you in the hospital again? What happened?” His mouth crumpled into a moue of concern, and Yeosang was suddenly glad that he hadn’t just left Wooyoung’s hospital room. He couldn’t think of anything more cruel than not visiting despite having the chance.

“Listen to me carefully,” he said seriously, taking one of Wooyoung’s hands in his and squeezing lightly. “I’m in the hospital visiting _you_. You’re not dead, Wooyoung. I think you’re in a coma or something. I don’t know how long it’s been, but this means that you can wake up. You weren’t, I don’t know, sick or anything before this, right?”

Wooyoung shook his head automatically, but his expression was shell-shocked, his jaw hanging open.

“Hey,” Yeosang said impatiently, squeezing Wooyoung’s hand again, afraid that he might wake up at any moment. “You have to try, okay? Try and wake up. Take up meditation or something, I don’t care. Just make sure you open your damn eyes. You’re not dead – you don’t have to be stuck here forever.”

Wooyoung blinked slowly at him, his brows raising marginally at Yeosang’s vehemence. “I –” he started blankly. “I’m not dead?” He looked more dazed than surprised, but Yeosang could already see the slow widening of his eyes, the way his lips tugged upwards into a disbelieving grin that was at once both relieved and distraught.

“I thought I was going to be stuck here forever,” he said at last with a stunned sort of laugh, and Yeosang could clearly hear the way the full terror of that possibility suddenly came crashing down upon Wooyoung. “I’m _alive_. Wow. Yeosang, I –”

And then he was shaken awake gently, a middle-aged lady standing by his side with a worn smile on her face. “I’m sorry,” she said quietly. “If you don’t mind – they only let two visitors in at once, and my husband is outside. We do appreciate that you came to see our Wooyoung, and I’m sure that he knows too.” She looked at Wooyoung’s still form, and there was such heartache in her eyes that Yeosang knew at once that she must be Wooyoung’s mother.

He leapt to his feet in an instant, ears hot with embarrassment at being found by the bedside of someone he technically didn’t even know. “I’m so sorry,” he blurted, bowing hastily even as he backed out of the room. He bowed once more to the man waiting outside, feeling more shaken than he would have expected as he watched the door click shut.

He had seen her for less than half a minute, and yet he felt as if the woman’s expression as she had gazed upon Wooyoung had seared itself into his brain – it was the terrible beauty of grief and hope, love and despair all at the same time, the complicated emotions of a mother whose child might never open his eyes again, far deeper than anything Yeosang could ever hope to imagine.

_Come on, Wooyoung_ , he thought, looking back at the closed door for a moment.

_Wake up_.

But he didn’t, not when Yeosang went back to the hospital to visit three days later, or even the next weekend. Yeosang mostly avoided visiting late in the evening, when Wooyoung’s parents were there, nor did he sleep in the hospital again. He usually just sat there with his phone or a book in hand, or spent a few minutes looking quietly at Wooyoung’s unchanging face, waiting in vain for his eyes to open.

He wanted the next time he saw Wooyoung to be in the waking world.

“Where have you been going?” Seonghwa asked him once, but Yeosang only shrugged sheepishly as he evaded the question. Something about the way he had met Wooyoung felt too personal to put into words. He didn’t even fully understand his own emotions when it came to the other boy – if it was pity that moved him, or gratitude, or something deeper.

Whatever the case, he continued to visit Wooyoung at least twice a week, sitting by his bedside and occasionally reading out loud to break the monotony of the beeping machinery around them. He tried to imagine what Wooyoung was doing in his dreamscape – if he was wondering why Yeosang hadn’t come back, if he was still saving people from their nightmares.

The thought made Yeosang pause, something knocking loose at the very edges of his consciousness. His eyes drifted from the lines of text he had been reading over to Wooyoung’s pale, still face, and that was when the realisation hit him.

* * *

The beach was as sunny as before, the sand just as warm beneath his bare soles. Yeosang almost thought that Wooyoung wouldn’t show up this time, but finally he heard the muffled thud of shoes on sand approaching from behind.

“Hey,” he said, turning around and smiling slightly at the sight of Wooyoung kicking up clumps of sand behind him as he ran.

“You’re here!” Wooyoung sounded slightly breathless as he slowed to a stop, and Yeosang wondered if that was a result of his dreamscape or simply Wooyoung’s own imagination. He was smiling, clearly pleased to see Yeosang, but it didn’t seem quite as bright as before, the light that Yeosang had always associated with Wooyoung’s contagious grins suddenly subdued.

“Yeah, well,” Yeosang muttered. “I wasn’t going to, but you didn’t wake up.” He didn’t mean to sound accusing, but Wooyoung’s smile melted away, replaced by a flash of hurt, and he sucked in a breath as if to protest.

Quickly, Yeosang held up a hand. There was no time to feel bad, not when Wooyoung’s life was on the line.

“I have a theory,” he said, raising his brows. “You’ve still been visiting others’ dreams, haven’t you? That’s how you knew so quickly that I was dreaming too. That’s great and all, but I think you have to stop. I think that moving around in other people’s dreams means that you’re not in your own head. You can’t wake up if you’re hardly ever in your own dreamscape, you idiot.”

Wooyoung’s mouth half-opened and froze for a long second, until finally he said in amazement, “Wait, that actually makes sense. Yeosang, you’re a genius!” He lunged forward, arms flung wide, and Yeosang was utterly taken aback to find himself crushed into a tight hug. For a moment, he could do nothing but stand stiff as a board in Wooyoung’s hold, hoping against hope that the sudden pounding cadence of his heart in the distance had gone unnoticed.

“I tried a bit of meditation like you said,” Wooyoung babbled on excitedly as he pulled back, completely oblivious to the heat that was beginning to suffuse Yeosang’s cheeks. “Like getting in tune with my own heart and everything, but it got boring after a while. I guess I could find some books to read in my own dreamscape.” He sighed at the thought, his nose crinkling, and Yeosang had to hold back a smirk at the sight.

“Give it a full week,” he said encouragingly. “I’ll come visit again in seven days, and if you’re not awake by then I guess you can dream-hop over here. We’ll figure something out. Just…don’t go anywhere before the seven days are up, seriously.”

Wooyoung beamed at him, his eyes shining hazel in the sunlight. “Thanks. I really don’t know what I’d have done without you,” he said, with so much sincerity in his voice that Yeosang couldn’t help shifting uncomfortably. “I can’t wait to meet you in real life.”

Yeosang looked away, out across a clear, empty stretch of beach with no one else in sight. “Me too,” he murmured, and he was only halfway surprised when he felt Wooyoung’s hand slip into his, their fingers slotting together comfortably. He wondered if he was convincing anyone at all when he told himself that Wooyoung was just lonely.

The week passed interminably slowly for Yeosang after that, despite his ongoing classes and his horrendously nosy friends who helped to keep him occupied. He could only imagine how much worse it was for Wooyoung, stuck in his own head as they both waited for the weekend to roll around.

His next visit to the hospital was nerve-racking. He desperately wanted to know if Wooyoung was awake, but he also didn’t want to know if Wooyoung _wasn’t_ awake. When he walked up to the counter, the nurse who was seated there gave him such an open look of concern that Yeosang realised he probably looked exactly as terrified as he felt.

“I’m here to visit Jung Wooyoung,” he said, clearing his throat hoarsely as he watched her fingers fly across the keyboard.

The nurse hummed to herself as she scanned her screen, and then looked back at Yeosang with a smile. “Well, it says here he’s been in a minimally conscious state for the past three days, so he’s coming in and out of consciousness. He probably won’t recognise you, but talking to him might help.”

“Oh.” Yeosang blinked rapidly, speechless for a moment before he managed to squeak, “Thank you.”

The change was clear enough the moment he stepped into Wooyoung’s hospital room. Everything looked the same as before, but Wooyoung himself no longer seemed like an empty shell absent from his own body. His eyes were moving restlessly beneath his lids, his breathing deeper and more even, like someone truly asleep.

Yeosang could almost feel himself deflating with relief as he sank down into the chair, his eyes fixed on Wooyoung’s face. For the first time since his earliest visit to the hospital, he reached out for Wooyoung’s hand, laying his palm delicately over the other boy’s, as if he was handling valuable porcelain.

“Hey,” he started awkwardly. “It’s me, Yeosang. I don’t know if you can hear me but, well, I think it worked. I mean, they say you’re waking up, so – yeah, that’s great.” He stroked along the base of Wooyoung’s thumb and sighed, falling silent.

Suddenly, Wooyoung’s eyelids fluttered, revealing a flash of dark pupil for just an instant, and then he settled into stillness once more. It took Yeosang a long second to stop gaping, the sudden thundering of his heart roaring in his ears at the minute motion. He had come in expecting a miracle, expecting Wooyoung to be walking and talking and smiling in an instant, but this was real life, and somehow it was better than any miracle he could have imagined.

Wooyoung made rapid progress after that. Rapid for a coma patient anyway, Yeosang was told. By the time he was largely awake and talking again, his parents were with him so often that Yeosang found it difficult to pick a right time to visit. He desperately wanted to see Wooyoung for himself, just to make sure that he really was conscious and healthy, but the thought of having to make small talk with any of Wooyoung’s family and friends made his insides shrivel up with dread.

The next time he tried to pay a visit, Wooyoung wasn’t even in his room.

“He’s having physical therapy now, but he shouldn’t be long. He’s still taking it slow,” one of the nurses said to him, and she must have seen something in his face then, because she asked kindly, “Have you seen him since he woke up?”

Yeosang shook his head mutely, his fists clenched nervously by his sides.

“He’s doing very well,” the nurse assured him. “He’s still having some difficulties with his memory, but that’s fairly normal at this stage. I’m sure he’ll be happy to see you.”

Sure enough, it wasn’t long before Yeosang saw Wooyoung being pushed down the corridor in a wheelchair, his hair already long enough to brush his forehead. He looked tired, but there was a smile on his face as he chatted to the man behind him, his hands moving animatedly as he spoke. The sight made Yeosang strangely sad. He hardly even remembered his dreams; could he really expect Wooyoung to fare any better?

Still, he stood up quickly when he saw the man leave Wooyoung’s room, allowing himself only a single deep breath before he knocked sharply on the door.

“Yeah?” Wooyoung called from within.

He looked over curiously as Yeosang pushed the door open, and then his eyes widened all at once, his smile turning almost luminous with amazement as his eyes flickered across Yeosang’s features.

“Yeosang,” he breathed. “You’re _real_.” He held his arms out wide, and Yeosang sank gingerly into the hug, closing his eyes at the utter relief that flooded him, at how right it felt to be in Wooyoung’s arms like this. There had never been anything to fear after all.

When he pulled back, he was surprised to find that his cheeks were wet.

Wooyoung beamed, clutching on tightly to Yeosang’s hand. “Hey, it worked,” he said, softening visibly at the sight of Yeosang’s tears. “I’m totally fine. Well, mostly.” He chuckled a little at that, reaching out with his free hand to swipe casually at the damp trails on Yeosang’s face with his thumb, as if the action was the most natural thing in the world to him.

Yeosang found himself quite speechless as he drank in the sight of Wooyoung sitting before him, more real and more present than he could ever have imagined, his hand warm around Yeosang’s. He wanted to say something like _Good_ or _I’m glad_ , but what came out instead seemed to have completely skipped his brain-to-mouth filter.

“Do you want to go on a date with me?” he blurted, and immediately felt himself flushing hotly all the way to the tips of his ears. “Not now, I mean, but when you’re better – if you want.”

“I – _what_?” For the first time, Wooyoung’s smile flickered, his brows pulling together as he stared at Yeosang in shock. The next moment, his expression transformed into one of such glad surprise that Yeosang couldn’t even muster up the strength to feel excessively embarrassed.

“Yeah,” Wooyoung said, looking almost shy as he smiled crookedly at Yeosang. “I’d really like that.”

They stared at each other in silence for another moment, and Yeosang was fairly sure that the smile on his face was equally as dopey as Wooyoung’s.

And then Wooyoung asked, his voice lowering, almost playful but not quite, “Do you want to kiss me?” His eyes were so dark they seemed depthless. “And I mean now.”

Yeosang raised his brows, his gaze dropping to Wooyoung’s lips, and then he decided that –

“Yeah,” he echoed as he leaned in, one hand settling lightly on Wooyoung’s thigh. “I’d really like that.”


	3. epilogue

Tucked away in one corner of the coffeeshop, Wooyoung turned his phone over in his hands repeatedly, wishing that he hadn’t reached so early – or that he had at least let San tag along like his friend had offered. Apart from his classes, he hadn’t been out and about much since being discharged, and even then he rarely lingered on campus. Everything was just so real and so _loud_. He felt as if his senses had all gradually dialled up to eleven since waking up.

“Wooyoung, hey.”

He jerked slightly at Yeosang’s sudden appearance beside him, blinking up at the other boy with a slowly dawning smile on his face. “Hey,” he repeated stupidly, the air suddenly stealing from his lungs in one fell swoop. He’d just seen Yeosang a week or so ago, the day after he’d finally gotten out of the hospital, but this was different somehow.

_First date_ different.

“Sorry I’m late.” Yeosang shook his head slightly, dropping down onto the opposite seat with a sigh. “My lecture ended late, and then the bus took ages to arrive.” He cocked his head then, eyeing Wooyoung with that seemingly omniscient stare of his that never failed to make Wooyoung squirm.

“What?” he muttered, heat crawling up his neck as Yeosang reached out for his hand, a clear gesture of concern.

Yeosang shrugged, one brow raising momentarily. “You okay?” he asked, his eyes narrowing as they flicked around the crowded coffeeshop. “Do you want to get out of here?”

Wooyoung’s mouth half-opened in confusion, and Yeosang was already pulling him out of his seat by the time he managed to find his voice. “But you just got here,” he protested ineffectually, clutching on tight to Yeosang’s hand. A small thrill ran through him as they pushed their way out through the heavy glass doors, a rush of fresh air filling his lungs. He felt as if he were asleep again, being spirited away to a better dreamscape than his own.

Slowing down, falling back into step beside Wooyoung with their fingers still laced together, Yeosang gave him a faint smile. “Your face is pretty easy to read, you know,” he said, his tone just this side of teasing, and then, a tad more seriously, “How have you been?”

“Tired,” Wooyoung admitted. “I can’t really deal with too many people yet, I guess. Dreams aren’t usually so crowded – you know what I mean, right? And it’s all a bit more…distant compared to real life. Time is so _linear_ here. I keep losing track of it. It’s like I moved away and then came home after a long time, except I’ve forgotten how everything works.”

Yeosang shot him a sideways glance, and the twist of his smile was wry. “Give yourself time. It’ll fade,” he said simply, and he squeezed Wooyoung’s hand reassuringly. “I’ll be here.”

There was something very comforting about Yeosang’s presence, and not only because he was the only person who knew exactly what Wooyoung had spent his coma months up to. Wooyoung had a feeling that Yeosang was just that sort of person in general – the one who rarely got shaken, the one who suggested fixes that actually ended up working.

“Sorry,” was all he could think of to say after a moment. “This probably isn’t your idea of an ideal date.” The old Wooyoung would have laughed, he thought, more wistful than bitter. The old Wooyoung would have laughed and said something funny, or told an entertaining story to keep Yeosang’s attention on him. The new Wooyoung didn’t have anything to talk about besides the fact that he’d been unconscious for the last two months.

“It’s fine. I didn’t really care about the place, honestly,” Yeosang said with a low chuckle. “I just figured it’d be a convenient location for you. I guess I just wanted to – uh, see you. In real life, I mean, and not in a hospital. When we met those couple of times in my dreamscape, I felt like – I wanted you to be okay. I really wanted to be able to meet you.”

For the first time that afternoon, Yeosang’s calm veneer seemed to crack, embarrassment creeping into his words as his ears tinted pink, and Wooyoung felt his own heart begin to beat double-time at the sight.

“I mean, you did get to kiss me the first time we met,” he pointed out with deliberate nonchalance, thoroughly enjoying the way Yeosang’s eyes shot wide open, “so I guess you accomplished your mission.”

Wooyoung couldn’t keep the wide grin off his face, almost preening with delight as Yeosang sputtered wordlessly beside him. For the first time in a while, he felt good. He felt _normal_.

He was also starting to feel very physically tired from walking.

Wooyoung had almost thrown a fit when he’d been informed quite firmly that he wouldn’t be able to resume dancing until he had completed every single one of his physical therapy sessions, but the ugly truth about the extent of his muscle atrophy had sunk in on his first day back on campus. Five whole minutes of walking had exhausted him so much he’d had to let San piggyback him the rest of the way to class so he wouldn’t be late. Dancing was, at the moment, completely out of the realm of possibility.

“Yeosang,” he said suddenly. “I need a break. Just a short one.” His inhalations were starting to sound slightly wheezy as he tried to keep his breathing even.

The other boy turned to him immediately, brief panic flitting across his face as he gave Wooyoung a quick once-over. The next moment, his expression settled once more, hardening into focused determination as he looked around. It was, Wooyoung had to admit to himself, a very attractive expression on an equally attractive face.

“There,” Yeosang said at last, gesturing towards a bus stop not too far off. “You can take a seat while I go grab us an ice cream from that shop.” He let go of Wooyoung’s hand in favour of wrapping an arm around his waist instead, and the unexpected movement made every hair on Wooyoung’s neck stand on end. It was nice, grounding almost, to have Yeosang treat him in exactly the same way he had in dreams, without the strange awkwardness of two online friends finally meeting face-to-face.

It was also extremely distracting. Wooyoung stared down at the ground, doing his best to place his feet carefully and focus on his breathing, all the while painfully aware of Yeosang’s proximity and how closely their sides were pressed up against each other.

He let out a long breath when he was finally sitting alone at the bus stop, slouching slightly on the bench. The sun was low enough in the sky that it illuminated his hands in his lap despite the shelter over his head, washing his skin a pale golden hue. He couldn’t help staring at the way every tiny hair on his hands was clearly visible in the light, his gaze tracking every minute crease along the backs of his knuckles, the tendons clearly outlined beneath his skin. He ran his fingers over the blue-green veins lightly, more prominent on his right hand than his left.

These were the little details that dreams never got quite right, the intricacies of reality that the mind inevitably skipped out on when constructing a dreamscape. It was a sight Wooyoung hadn’t properly seen in what felt like forever, and right then the simple beauty of the way the light hit his skin felt very much like magic.

Once again, he didn’t hear Yeosang’s approach until the other boy was standing before him, holding an ice cream right in his face. “Wooyoung,” Yeosang said again, sounding like he had repeated it more than once, and Wooyoung blinked confusedly as he squinted up at Yeosang, his figure backlit by the sun like a mythical being emerging from the light.

“Thanks,” he murmured, perking up with interest as he began to unwrap the ice cream. Yeosang settled beside him, his face serene as he looked out across the street at the passing cars. There was an uneven patch of pink just beside Yeosang’s eye, Wooyoung realised, a splash of colour that he couldn’t remember seeing before. He reached out for it without thinking, brushing the little mark with a finger.

Yeosang jumped, surprised, before a short laugh burst out of him. “What was that for?” he demanded, sounding amused, reaching up to rub at the side of his face himself.

Wooyoung shook his head, smiling and bemused, a million different emotions that he hardly knew what to do with coursing through him. “It just looked – pretty,” he said haltingly. “ _You’re_ pretty.”

“I’m not,” Yeosang said immediately, an automatic response, but his eyes were crinkling into half-moons as he smiled, his blonde hair gleaming like spun gold in the sunlight. Wooyoung shifted closer, close enough that their knees were bumping against each other, and set a hand gently along the side of Yeosang’s face, cupping his jaw and drawing him in.

Wooyoung’s eyes fluttered shut as their mouths met, a lovely familiarity to the action now as he swiped his tongue along Yeosang’s bottom lip. It caught on a smear of ice cream and a sudden burst of unexpected sweetness spread on his tongue, making him shiver. Yeosang was pressing back against him, his mouth moving with a delightful sureness that Wooyoung hadn’t expected, the exhilarating taste of him impossible to be anything but real.

Pulling away suddenly, ignoring Wooyoung’s soft noise of dissatisfaction, Yeosang said quite belatedly, “Wooyoung, we’re in _public_.” There was a vague horror on his face that Wooyoung couldn’t help giggling at, his hand dropping to pat Yeosang’s shoulder indulgently instead.

“Come on, it was just a small kiss,” he said with a grin, still slightly breathless from the moment. Yeosang glared at him, looking distinctly disgruntled, and only popped the rest of his dripping ice cream into his mouth – but his cheeks were stained a very faint tell-tale pink, and he didn’t move away when Wooyoung leaned over to rest his head against Yeosang’s shoulder.

“So do I get a second date?” Wooyoung asked after a moment, and this time he both heard and felt Yeosang’s soft chuckle.

“Well, I don’t know. _Do_ you?” he asked, amused. Wooyoung huffed in protest as he nudged at Yeosang with his shoulder, knowing perfectly well that the other boy was smiling right then, that cool look of satisfaction that he always wore each time he succeeded in ribbing Wooyoung.

“Text me when you’re free,” Yeosang said at last. “We can go to the park next time. It won’t be as crowded and you’ll be able to rest in the shade. We can have a small picnic and I’ll bring my skateboard.”

Wooyoung angled his head slightly to glance upwards, resting his cheek against the bony jut of Yeosang’s collarbone. He stared up-close at the sharp line of Yeosang’s jaw, at the slope of his nose and the gentle curve of his lips, and wanted very much to kiss him again.

“That sounds nice,” he said, and then, just a little louder, “Hey, Yeosang.”

Yeosang tilted his head so that his gaze met Wooyoung’s. “What?” he asked, brows raising.

Wooyoung grinned, taking just a heartbeat to admire the play of light on Yeosang’s face, the way it turned his eyes a bright clear hazel, the way it seemed almost to shine right through the blonde strands falling across his face.

“Nothing,” he whispered, as he closed his eyes and leaned up to kiss Yeosang once more.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I hadn't originally planned to write their first date bc I thought it'd just be some generic fluff thing? But then I thought about it a little more and realised that Wooyoung literally just woke up from a 2-month coma with definite side-effects. So thank you to Mochi_Latte for making me think about this and commenting this epilogue into existence! *finger guns*


End file.
